Monday, January 07, 2013

I was somewhat taken aback by a
report in the news that an NBC executive was continuing to monitor the acts
and antics of Donald Trump and might “act” if he goes so over the top or
crosses some sort of line.

And I don’t think he was talking about what Trump says or
does on his TV show.

Now to me, that’s just not right and it runs up against my
sense of fair play and, yes, constitutional rights. If a public
celebrity has to worry about what he says or does off the show and face being
sanctioned in some way by his boss for doing so, then I have a problem there,
and I am no fan of Donald Trump.

In fact, I have written on this blog that I never thought that
Trump was a serious presidential candidate and that things he said were meant solely
to attract attention to him.

If anything, I believe that free enterprise, and not some
media executive should trump Trump. Much like how we finally got rid of Glen
Beck – get his sponsors to withhold support. Much like is currently underway by
several groups whose sole purpose is
to drive Rush Limbaugh off the airwaves in similar fashion, by contacting
his sponsors.

If people want to utter outrageous lies, let them be
sanctioned by the people who buy the products that he hawks.

Now there is a downside to this kind of action. At this
writing it looks like somewhere around 2200 sponsors have stopped their ads on
the Limbaugh radio show, and that’s a good thing. The problem is that the
emptiness appears to be taken up by the SuperPacs who wreaked such havoc on our
electoral process last year. FreedomWorks,
it is reported, is sponsoring the Limbaugh show.

Now I think they can do this despite being a non-profit
organization, but as an ultra-right political organization supporting a
neo-conservative radio show it smacks of the very antithesis of free
enterprise. It smacks of a plutocracy.